


A Day Out

by Lalikaa



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Friends, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28162986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lalikaa/pseuds/Lalikaa
Summary: Akiteru takes Kei and Tadashi for a day out in Sendai!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Moonrise: A Tsukishima Kei Zine





	A Day Out

**Author's Note:**

> A fic I wrote for Moonrise! I hope you all enjoy! :D

It wasn’t like Kei was… bad at making friends. 

He just wasn’t quite good at it, either. 

Until Tadashi, that is. It had seemed inconsequential at the time, but he had sort of stuck to Kei like seaweed to an onigiri. 

It had started with their encounter on the playground, followed by meeting again outside the gym. Then Tadashi began greeting him every morning, and somehow it had ended with the two of them eating lunch together and hanging out after school nearly every day. 

Kei’s parents were thrilled that he was finally bringing home a friend, and once they had found out Tadashi’s parents were absent quite a bit due to work, he started staying over for dinner, too. 

Tadashi made his way into Kei’s life almost discreetly, though that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

It was just different. 

Kei wasn’t really sure what to make of it.

~~*~~

“C’mon, Kei. You never invite anyone anywhere. You and Tadashi have been playing a lot recently, just invite him!” Akiteru said one afternoon.

It wasn’t all that easy, though. In his 11 years, Kei had never invited a friend out anywhere, at least not on his own. Besides, he’d always been under the impression that no one would really want to go on a trip anywhere with him, which was honestly fine by him.

But maybe... maybe it wouldn’t hurt to invite Tadashi, just this one time. 

So, the next day during lunch, Kei decided to ask. 

“Hey, Yamaguchi,” Kei said.

“Yeah, Tsukki?”

Kei would probably rather eat a thousand sour plums before admitting that he liked the nickname Yamaguchi gave him.

“So, Akiteru-nii wants to go to Sendai this weekend to buy new volleyball gear, and said we could come, too.”

“For real? Definitely!”

Kei let out a breath he didn’t realize he was even holding. 

Why had he been worried that Yamaguchi would say no, anyway?

~~*~~

“Whaaat, you’ve seriously only been to Sendai five times?” Kei could barely believe what he was hearing. “Like, in your whole life?”

“Well, maybe six times,” Yamaguchi admitted, his voice small and cheeks red. 

Kei thought of all the times he’d been up to Sendai with his family, and even just with Akiteru. 

As if reading his mind, Yamaguchi explained further. “My parents are usually really busy, so we just don’t have time to go.”

“You’ve never been to the aquarium or any of the museums or anything?” Kei couldn’t imagine not having these experiences. 

Yamaguchi shook his head in response.

“Nii-chan, hey Nii-chan! Can we go to the Sendai Science Museum?”

“Again, Kei? Nah, we don’t have time.” He gestured at Kei and said to Yamaguchi: “This kid loves museums. Crazy, right?” 

At Kei’s pout though, Akiteru yielded. “Next time, ok?”

“This time. Yamaguchi has to come, too,” Kei said firmly.

“Ok, ok,” Akiteru said, holding his hands up in defeat. 

“Wait, really?” Yamaguchi asked, while Kei did a fist-pump. 

“I told you, my brother’s cool,” Kei said to Yamaguchi, as Akiteru beamed. 

“So why does your brother need to go to Sendai to get a new volleyball anyway? There are volleyballs at the sports store in our town, you know,” Yamaguchi said, after their excitement over going to the science museum died down a bit. 

“Yeah, but not the latest editions and stuff!”

“The difference in volleyballs is really that much?” Yamaguchi asked.

“Well, yeah,” Kei said. “Plus I think Nii-san just wanted to go somewhere that’s not our town.”

Once they arrived at Sendai Station, they took a connecting train to Asahigaoka Station. On the way there, Kei wasn’t hesitant to fill Yamaguchi in on all the exhibits.

“There’s a rock garden- you collect rocks, right?- and there’s prehistoric elephants, too! Well, they’re not as cool as dinosaur bones or anything, but it’s still ok. There’s also a nature trail, but it’s kinda small. And then there’s also-”

“Kei, calm down!” Akiteru laughed. 

“I don’t need to calm down,” Kei said, affronted. “I’m just telling Yamaguchi about the museum.”

“I don’t mind, Akiteru-nii!” 

“Let’s just let Tadashi-kun see everything for himself, alright?”

“Fiiiiine,” Kei said.It really wasn’t fair. Kei was only trying to tell Yamaguchi everything he knew,what was so wrong with that? Kei really liked talking about the museum, and the aquarium, and dinosaurs, and he was starting to realize how exciting it was to have a friend to share those interests with.

Once they got their tickets and entered the museum, Kei insisted that they all go inside the giant soap bubbles first, which were conveniently placed near the entrance.

“It’s really weird when you’re inside it, but pretty cool. You have to try it to just see.,” Kei said as they stood in line to stand inside the displays. “You can’t touch the walls though.”

Yamaguchi nodded fervently as he took in all the information. “I didn’t even know bubbles could be human-sized!”

Once they each were in their respective soap bubbles, Kei turned to Yamaguchi and almost doubled over at his friend making faces. The bubble itself already distorted his face, so the way Yamaguchi was puffing out his cheeks made him look even funnier. 

“Alright you two, c’mon,” Akiteru said, only giving Kei and Tadashi a minute to make faces at each other.

As they went through the museum, Kei excitedly showed Tadashi all the exhibits. They did the microscope experiments, where they studied the difference between leaves, in the Challenge Lab Area and shortly after, Tadashi made a beeline to the two giant harps on display. Kei showed Tadashi how they worked by operating the laser lights, and soon they were trying to harmonize the harps to play the Star Wars theme. 

“If you think this is cool, you should see the robots!” Kei said, leading Tadashi over to the ‘Robot Zone’. There, Kei showed Tadashi how to move the robots with the controls at hand, though Akiteru had to step in when their robot battle got a little too intense.

On the next floor, they were greeted with the Sendai elephant display. Despite Akiteru claiming that Kei was just a giant nerd, Kei told Yamaguchi all about the history of the elephants.. But when they entered the rock garden, it was Yamaguchi’s time to shine, as he pointed out the different types of rocks he recognized.

“Kei’s usually only interested in rocks if there’s a fossil involved,” Akiteru teased, to which Kei responded by sticking out his tongue.

“Fossils are neat too, though!” Yamaguchi said to Kei. “I actually have one, I can show you next time you’re over!” The two then began to discuss fossils over the course of the rock garden. Their excited chatter lasted all the way to the gift shop, where Kei picked out a Sendai elephants postcard to send to his aunt, who loved history. Then he brought a deck of cards featuring different types of rocks and plants over to Yamaguchi. 

“I got these for you. We can play card games during lunch, maybe,” Kei said, gesturing to the deck. 

Yamaguchi just grinned; “Thanks, Tsukki!” 

~~*~~

With a quick pit stop at a MOS Burger for a late lunch, they headed to the sports store. There, they made a beeline to the volleyball gear, and laughed as they sifted through all the options in the ball crate.

“Nii-chan, you should get this one!” Kei snickered as he held up a neon yellow ball.

“What, and blind myself when I try and play? No thanks.”

“C’mon Nii-chan, you know it’s cool,” Kei said while Yamaguchi giggled behind him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Akiteru said. “C’mon, help me find a good pair of kneepads- Not those ones!” He snapped as Yamaguchi innocently held up a child’s pair with hearts and stars printed on them.

After that, Kei and Yamaguchi made a game of picking out the most outlandish gear they could find in the sports store, including inflatable giraffe floaties, and insisting Akiteru buy it. It took the store employee at the register making a few passive aggressive comments to eventually get the two boys to stop. 

Once back outside, new volleyball gear in hand, they made their way back to the train station until they passed a nearby park. 

“Are you kids still not tired?” Akiteru said incredulously as both Kei and Tadashi begged him to let them play in the park for a bit. 

“Nii-chan, you’re not that much older than us!”

“You guys are just barely in the double digits.”

“Well, you’re barely an adult!” Kei shot back.

Akiteru laughed. “I guess so. And alright, alright, we can play some. But then we have to catch the next train home. I promised Mom I’d have you both home before dinner.”

Kei and Tadashi high-fived and then found a grassy area to play. 

Akiteru tossed the ball up and passed it to Kei, who bumped it to Tadashi, who missed entirely. He called out a “sorry!” as he ran to go retrieve the ball. 

Kei was secretly glad that he wasn’t the one to mess up the pass, but by the time Yamaguchi had passed the ball back to him a third time, he accidentally sent it straight up into a tree.

“Not my new ball! Keeeeiii!” Akiteru complained.

“I can get it!” Yamaguchi volunteered.

“I’ll do it!” Kei insisted.

But Akiteru was already bounding up, barely hitting the tree branch. He jumped again, successfully snagging the branch this time around, and the ball fell loose.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have picked an area with so many trees,” Akiteru mused, but he set the ball back to Kei anyway.

Kei, deciding he didn’t want to chance treeing another ball, opted to spike it instead. This prompted Yamaguchi to want to try spiking it too, and soon their passing session became a hitting lesson. Kei was able to hit well, but he figured half of that was just because he was tall. Yamaguchi’s hits were wobbly, and often curved to the side. Meanwhile, Akiteru’s hits were beyond powerful in Kei’s eyes, but of course his brother’s spikes were insanely strong- he was the ace, after all! As Akiteru gave Yamaguchi pointers on his spike, Kei felt lucky that he had an older brother to teach him things like that all the time. 

“Can we do this again?” Yamaguchi asked hopefully as they headed back to the train station. “Then maybe you guys could show me around the city a little more.”

“Yeah, of course!” Kei blurted out. “Maybe someday we can even go to Tokyo! That’s the coolest city.”

“Woah, woah,” Akiteru laughed. “You’re planning a trip to Tokyo now?”

“Or we can just come back to Sendai, I guess,” Kei said.

“Tokyo would be awesome, but Sendai is really awesome too,” Yamaguchi grinned. 

Kei smiled back. He couldn’t help but feel excited for the next time.


End file.
